NBC's Deceptive Edit of Sandusky May Serve as Grounds for Appeal

First -- of course Jerry Sandusky is guilty.

That's not the point here. The point is that the prosecutors relied upon NBC to provide an accurate edit of the Jerry Sandusky interview.

They were burned on that.

Lawyers for Jerry Sandusky sought a mistrial before his conviction for child sex abuse on the grounds that prosecutors showed jurors an inaccurate version of a bombshell NBC News interview with the former football coach, and the mistake may now form part of the basis for an appeal.

In response to a subpoena, NBC News turned over three versions of Bob Costas' NBC News interview with Sandusky, which aired last November on different NBC shows.

One of those versions, which was broadcast on the 'Today' show, contained an erroneous repetition of a key question and answer - about whether Sandusky was sexually attracted to young boys, Nils Frederiksen, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general said on Sunday.

The repetition, Sandusky's lawyers contend, made it appear to jurors that he was stonewalling.

"It wasn't noticed by (NBC News), it wasn't noticed by us, but it became obvious when it played in court," Frederiksen told Reuters.

...

Sandusky attorney Joe Amendola said NBC's error would form part of the basis for an appeal. "Oh my goodness, yes," he said, when asked about whether it could be used in an appeal.

I can't quote the whole thing, but they apparently knitted together two parts of the interview that were not actually connected. Bob Costas asked him if he was sexually attracted to young boys, and then Sandusky answered (according to NBC's edit) "Am I sexually attracted to young boys?" as if he was stonewalling, or attempting to delay answering, the way people do when hiding guilt.

The article doesn't say in what context those two statements actually appeared, but it appears they were not actually connected.

Big Journalism wants to know how many deliberately deceptive edits NBC's chief is comfortable with.

Apparently the answer is "at least five, and counting."

posted by Ace at 03:45 PM

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